Why Common Sense Elude Our Media Moguls?

Right from the lowest field reporters to the highest levels of editorial staff and seasoned columnists the spirit of enquiry in keeping with common sense of the highest order mark the quality and fidelity of journalists and media persons. They will not take for face value the statements of anybody howsoever high and mighty they be, and thoroughly check up the truth of the statements by subjecting them to enquiry and investigation. The profession of journalism is considered so noble inasmuch as the words of those in it are supposed to shape the public opinion,
But unfortunately with the unhealthy mushrooming media and cut throat competition amongst them to be number one in exposures and explosions, truth of reporting was subordinated to commercial considerations of sensationalism. Magnifying everything beyond proportions has become the order of the day for newspapers, periodicals and television channels. Although there had been many victims, known and unknown and of importance and insignificance, the first ever huge victim of sheer sensationalism was the telecom revolution ushered in by the former Union Telegram Minister A.Raja. The villains of the crime were an axis of the Constitutional audit authority- the media- judiciary, one providing the succour to the next and vice-versa.
Now, with the startling disclosures made by R.P.Singh, the former Director in the Comptroller & Auditor General’s office, all those who cried hoarse over the huge ‘presumed loss’ of Rs.1,76,000 crore in the allocation of 2G spectrum by the former Minister A.Raja seem to be on the defensive and in search of alibis in defence of the CAG. The daily ‘Times of India’ and its news channel, which proudly claimed to have first ‘exposed’ the ‘spectrum scam’, on Nov 24, published ‘Times View’ as: “ Yet again, we are witness to heated debates on the accuracy or otherwise of the CAG’s estimates of the loss in the 2G spectrum scam. The figures being bandied about vary from under Rs.3,000 crore to the much talked about Rs.1.76 lakh crore. This is completely a pointless debate. What amount the government could have got if it had auctioned telecom spectrum in 2007 is not only academic today, it is not even the brunt of the CAG’s report. The real issue to be focused on are how the allocation of licenses and spectrum was done through a process that was non-transparent, arbitrary and hence unfair.”  This, in a nutshell, is the collective wish of the entire Indian media to shift the focus of the ongoing debate about the correctness or otherwise of the CAG’s estimate and save their face from the ignominy of having misled the public opinion during the last two years.
Can there be any greater bluff than this? Is the debate, at least now as earlier it was suppressed by the hullabaloo raised by the media, on the accuracy of the estimate of loss by the CAG is ‘completely a pointless debate’ and ‘only academic’? Is that not the ‘brunt of the CAG’s report?
It is only after the CAG’s perverted report on 2G spectrum allocation was brought to light by the media and chorus of Rs.1,76,000 crore was raised by the media and the Opposition parties, the very nomenclatures “CAG’, ‘2G spectrum’, and the amount of ‘Rs.1,76,000 crore’ became household words of people all over the country. History reveals that under dictatorship regimes the citizens were brain-washed by constant propagation of lies, as the Germans experienced under Hitler’s regime by the propaganda of his Information Minister Goebbels. The collective of Indian media has indeed made a history by brain-washing people of the country on ‘spectrum scam’ and thus establishing that it can also be done in a ‘democratic country’. Was not the nation taken for a ride? Was not the public discourse extremely vitiated? Was not India’s growth story derailed in the past two years? Were not the economic and development initiatives paralysed by the hue and cry raised by fissiparous and disruptive elements? Above all, was not a good rule brought down and anarchic regime installed in power in Tamil Nadu? Were not irreparable damages done to so many organizations and individuals by the unfounded canards hurled on them?
Even now the opposition parties and the media are trying to divert the scrutiny of the veracity of the CAG’s loss figure by raising needless questions on RP Singh. Why did not they deploy the same spirit of enquiry and common sense when the CAG in 2010 presented no audit irregularities but ‘presumed’ loss figure on 2G spectrum allocation in 2008 had it been auctioned as in the case of 3G spectrum in 2010. It was the same Minister who allocated 2G spectrum under the FCFS policy adopted all along and recommended by the TRAI and also auctioned 3G spectrum again as recommended by the TRAI. Why no questions or suspicions were raised in any quarter of the media whether the federal auditor can question the policy of the government? Why within a few minutes of the leak of the report the entire media jumped into the fray of scandalizing? Not a single journalist in the country had even remote idea about such a possibility and they were only reporting about ‘favouritism’ shown to some firms, which were then and there refuted by the then Minister. How could the figure ‘presumed’ by the CAG be sacrosanct and the actual figure worked out by the field auditor suspect? The onus of explaining and establishing a pure guess- work lies with the CAG and with those who question it. Why should the whole media work overtime as apologists of the federal auditor and cast aspersions on those who question the bonafides of his report? The question of the nation as a whole is not about the contradictions in the statements of R.P.Singh but how the actual loss figure of Rs. 2,800 crore worked out by him in his field audit was jacked up to the astounding sum of Rs 1,76,000 crore? The nation has the right to know and would not like the media to shield the CAG from a probe.
No sooner R.P.Singh spoke to the media, the CAG’s votaries in the media jumped the gun in their anxiety that the Perry Mason and Irwing Wallace novels they were scripting on the ‘mega scam of the century’ in the last two years do not turn into damp squib! Even the normally level-headed ‘The Hindu’ went all out to decry him. Shalini Singh worked overtime to nail his ‘double speak’ etc., and found out ‘In R.P.Singh’s 2G sums, an echo of Raja’. What are the ‘striking similarities’ between the statements of Mr. Singh and former Telecom Minister A.Raja, that Shalini has found out?: arguments such as 2G spectrum is not comparable with 3G and therefore the 3G auction price cannot be used as a reference for 2G. What is the great secret in it? Everyone knows that by technology and application 2G is vastly different from 3G.
This news story of Shalini Singh and the likes is the crux of the issue. This is what we call ‘media trial’, in which they charge sheeted, conducted trial and delivered judgment holding the former Telecom Minister A.Raja to be the culprit, and anyone who echoes any of his view will have to be viewed with suspicion! Then, why all this farce of CBI Special Court, trial etc.,?
And none of those crying hoarse about 2G spectrum scam, using 3G auction price as a reference for 2G spectrum allotment have taken note of the fact that the 3G service has not taken off and those service providers who bid and secured it in auction paying over Rs.One lakh crore are in dire straits in debt servicing. Or they conveniently cover up the failure.
Finally, it is matter of common sense that higher the cost paid for input for providing a service, the higher to that extent will be the output service rendered to the consumer. The telecom operators are not charity institutions, to render service to the consumer public at a huge loss! Had they been charged Rs.1,76,000 crore for 2G spectrum ( instead of around Rs 10,000 core entry fee they paid), the mobile tariff which is now 30 paise per minute would have been Rs.5.40 per minute. So if at all there were windfall gains for anybody through 2G spectrum allotment, it ie for the 92 crore mobile user people of this country. The duration of spectrum usage and revenue earned by telecom operators are available with the authorities and which company made such windfall gain by procuring spectrum at low costs can be verified at any time. But no such misuse had been found out so far. Why the vociferous media do not make such studies and analyses and why common sense is eluding them?
So, the question posed by Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal after the 2G auction flop,  ‘Where is Rs.1,76,000 crore?” begs answer from all those concerned. Why should the Media, which had to be more interested than the others in unearthing truth, resist an impartial probe into it? The people of the nation have a right to know the truth!